A star-studded episode!

With the post-Comic-Con coma fading, El Secreto & @thepeterpixie unpacked some of the good stuff ES collected while he was there, including interviews with:

* A red-carpet chat with Power Girl writer Jimmy Palmiotti, who gave us the skinny on his new project for Radical Publishing
* An encounter with Carrot Top - what ever could have brought him to Con? Find out here.
* We also played an excerpt from ES' interview with Bleeding Cool founder and longtime comics journalist Rich Johnston, which triggered a classic fanboy gaffe from our roving reporter. To hear what we're talking about, and the full interview, click on the fierce pic* below:



And if you click on the handy-dandy player below, you can listen to the full episode, where the boys cover:

* Yet another new line-up for the Justice League - when is a Trinity not a Trinity?
* Marvel's upcoming Necrosha crossover
* Some potentially bad news for Torchwood fans involving John Barrowman - and much more, including a sneak-preview of next week's show, chock-full of movie goodness!



* Image courtesy of BleedingCool.com

Will the real SDCC Twitter please stand up?

That headline is, of course, facetious. SDCC does have an Official Twitter feed. But things did get kinda confusing for awhile there.

Earlier this month, this Twit - let's call it Underscore - popped up, billing itself as being "a Con employee making the twitter that the con should make." After being questioned by @theonetruebix, Underscore Twitted that his or her feed was not approved by Con officials, but that he or she was working on behalf of the fans.

Finally, yesterday, The Official Twit came back to life, posting for the first time since last November. Official's bonafides were further confirmed by CCI Treasurer Mark Yturralde on his own Twitter feed. Underscore has subsequently re-billed itself as being produced by "a Comic Con expert" while continuing to post about upcoming panels at the event next month.

-- El Secreto

Sexism used to 'create buzz' for SD Comic-Con

The San Diego Comic-Con made the news over the weekend, but not in the best of lights. Check this out:

IGN started hosting a contest put on by the folks behind the upcoming sci-fi film District 9 looking for someone to perform “journalistic assignments” connected to the film at SDCC. The catch? According to the original contest rules:

This sweepstakes is open only to males who are both legal residents of the fifty (50) United States and Washington D.C. and who are at least between 18-24 years of age as of July 23, 2009

Well, Comics Worth Reading got ahold of the story, and so did Feministing and Tor.com, none of which failed to note the irony of a film that would reportedly deal with themes of prejudice and exclusion literally excluding a whole gender.

As the online backlash picked up, IGN posted a response:

The eligibility requirements for this contest were determined by Columbia TriStar Marketing, the marketing team behind the District 9 film, and were passed on as a directive to IGN as Sponsor of this particular Sweepstakes running on the IGN.com site. While IGN supports gamers of all ages, genders, shapes and sizes, these guidelines were created to foster a buzz for the film among a very narrow target group that the film’s promoters felt would be extremely passionate about the film’s subject matter.

The contest rules were eventually amended, somewhat: a separate, womens-only contest was started, with a later deadline.

**********

As bad as that was, the L.A. Times almost trumped it with its Girls' Guide to Comic-Con, a photo slideshow offering helpful tips like these for fans of the star of Prince of Persia:

Women will be rushing the stage, offering to do star Jake Gyllenhaal's laundry on those washboard abs that he acquired for the film, since he spends much of it fighting, shirtless or both.

Lest you think the Times is only cooing over guys, here's their take on Angelina Jolie:

With any luck, her luscious-lipped holiness will be around to hawk her upcoming action film "Salt," which is already being likened to a female-powered version of "The Bourne Identity." What's not to like?

Now, obviously, SDCC isn't to blame for these misguided attempts to "build awareness" for the event. But in the wake of past instances of harassment and sexism at Con, somebody at IGN, or the Times or at Tristar really showed a lack of understanding for all of us as fans, male or female. I'll leave the final word to Tor's Torie Atkinson:

We just want to be fans, and we're tired of being utterly invisible despite the fact that millions of women play games and read comics. That climate is entirely unwelcoming to women, and it's a testament to women's persistent interest in gaming and comics that we continue to try to be part of the community despite the overwhelming myth that we don't exist.

- ES